


Defying Explanation

by airy_nothing



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airy_nothing/pseuds/airy_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brad has a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defying Explanation

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt from thebeastisyou: Brad is Willy Wonka.

_Hold your breath._

_Make a wish._

_Count to three._

“Hit it!” said the girl who sometimes dressed like a boy, the one with the big voice. 

And right on cue, Brad did. Not that anyone really noticed, because as soon as the girl belted out her last notes and the applause died down (for her, not him), up jumped the next kid—the one with the light brown mop top (which reminded him of The Beatles, which reminded him of his own hair, which reminded him of his youth)—and named the song he was about to sing.

“Hit it!” the boy said, not even checking to see if Brad knew the song. (Of course he did, since he knew them all.) It would just be nice to be asked, at least once in a while.

As the group drifted out of the room at the end of practice, Brad paused at the keys. He spread open his hand and brushed his fingers over the smooth ebony of the sharps and flats. Looking up, he caught the eye of the tiny boy with the slicked-down hair. The boy smiled at Brad, and even added a hesitant wave. 

Brad simply stared at him, thinking how much he would love to wipe the smile off of that kid’s face, just once, because he was either high on something, or . . . he was high on something. There could be no other explanation for it, for the way that kid’s grin seemed to stretch across the sky, for the way rays of sunlight beamed out the tips of his fingers as he raised his hands up in the air and lost himself in the music. 

What really ticked off Brad was that this kid could play the piano. 

He’d lingered in the hall one day just to see it, having arrived that morning to find a message—from the ex-football player, the gawky replacement for Schuester—saying that he wasn’t needed in the choir room. And Brad had simply wondered why. The thought had eaten away at him until the bell sounded, after which he’d charted a path that would take him past the choir room at just the right time.  

He’d watched the kid leap right off the piano bench—and actually kick it behind him across the floor, where it rolled like a tumbleweed. 

The last of the glee club kids—one of the girls—finally walked toward the door, swinging her messenger bag over her shoulder and clearly failing to calculate the distance between herself and Brad, who was still seated at the piano. The heavy bag smacked him upside the head. 

He jerked forward and banged the keys. “What the . . .” he spat out, reaching instinctively for the spot on his head where he’d been clocked. 

“Where did you come from? I didn’t even see you there,” the blonde Cheerio observed, expressionless. She tilted her head slightly. “Is that a new song you’re writing? You should talk to that guy who usually plays backup for us. He’s actually pretty good,” she remarked, then left the room.

Brad drew the lid over the keys and let it drop with a thud. _What was wrong with kids today?_ he thought. _Thankless morons._ Laughing bitterly, he figured the girl assumed he would simply vanish the second he wasn’t needed, like he was some kind of genie. 

Which, come to think of it, would be a rather astute observation. 

He rose from the piano bench and walked back to the storage cabinets, stopping in front of the one farthest from the choir room door. He opened it wide and surveyed the contents: the uppermost shelves were stacked with old bake sale signs, and other shelves were stuffed with everything from Christmas garland to wigs. There was a copy of _Saturday Night Fever—_ a VHS tape—lying randomly atop a box of pink buttons that said, “Vote Unicorn” with a picture of that kid who’d graduated last year, Whatsisname. 

And tucked into the back of the very bottom shelf was a fawn-colored velvet top hat. 

Brad sighed as he reached for it, thankful for the end of yet another day of being unappreciated—and ultimately, misunderstood. He put on the hat and tapped the crown with his palm, then shut the cabinet. With his index finger he traced the seam between the doors, and thought about the gifts he’d given those kids today. As always, they’d rattled off songs they planned to sing with no advance notice, and he’d played them. He’d played them _perfectly_. Brad crouched as his finger continued its path along the seam, and when he got to the very bottom he stood up and said, “Well, that’s it for today, I guess.” 

Then he opened the doors and walked straight through to the other side.


End file.
